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Mark S. Blumenkranz

Mark S. Blumenkranz

Retina specialist

H. J. Smead Professor of Ophthalmology, Emeritus

Bio: Mark S. Blumenkranz, M.D., MMS, is HJ Smead Professor Emeritus in the Department of Ophthalmology at Stanford University. He received his Undergraduate, Master’s degree in Biochemical Pharmacology, and MD at Brown. He completed his surgical internship and ophthalmic residency training at Stanford and a fellowship in vitreoretinal diseases at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute where he was appointed a member of the faculty following completion of his training in 1980. In 1985 he founded the vitreoretinal Fellowship Training Program at the William Beaumont Eye Institute in Royal Oak Michigan, and served as the Fellowship Director until 1992. He returned to Stanford in 1992 as head of the vitreoretinal service and was appointed to serve as the Department Chairman in 1997. He served in that capacity until 2015. He played a leading role in the planning, fundraising and construction of the Byers Eye Institute at Stanford and served as founding Director beginning with its opening in September 2010 through June 2015.

Dr. Blumenkranz has served on the Editorial Boards of The American Journal of Ophthalmology, Retina, Ophthalmology, and Graefe’s Archives for Ophthalmology. He is a past President of the American University Professors of Ophthalmology (AUPO), and a past President of the Retina Society and the Macula Society. He is a member of the Steering Committee of the Audacious Goals Initiative of the NEI, and is a Fellow of the Corporation of Brown University, where he is the Chair of the Medical School Committee.

Dr. Blumenkranz was an early innovator in vitrectomy techniques to treat complex forms of retinal detachment, and helped to usher in the modern era of intravitreal and surgical adjuvant drug therapy with laboratory and clinical studies identifying 5- fluorouracil and low molecular weight heparin as potent agents to inhibit ocular scarring. These studies led to subsequent trials for these agents in glaucoma and proliferative vitreoretinopathy. He was a member of the group that first reported the herpetic etiology and successful acyclovir treatment of acute retinal necrosis, the use of bioerodible polymers to deliver intraocular steroids for macular edema and published the first human safety study of ranibizumab (lucentis) and gene therapy based anti-VEGF therapy for age related macular degeneration. He has published more than one hundred and sixty papers in peer-reviewed journals and multiple book chapters, abstracts and patents in the field.

Dr. Blumenkranz has a longstanding interest and expertise in university corporate technology. He was a director and principal trial designer at Oculex Pharmaceuticals for their successful phase 2 Ozurdex study, leading to its acquisition by Allergan in 2003. He served as a co-founder, Director and Chairman of the SAB of Macusight, an ophthalmic pharmaceutical company developing proprietary mTor inhibitors for ophthalmic disease, which was acquired by Santen in 2010. He was a founder and director of Peak Surgical, an innovator in pulsed plasma mediated electro-surgery that was acquired by Medtronics in 2011. In 2004 he co-founded Optimedica Corporation for which he co-wrote the foundation IP for the PASCAL and Catalys lasers, and which was acquired by AMO in 2013. In 2006 he co-founded and served as Chairman of the Board of Adverum Biotechnologies (ADVM) until October 2016. He was a co-founder and director of Oculeve, a dry eye company employing a neuro-modulatory approach to therapy, which was acquired by Allergan in August of 2015. He is a co-founder and serves as a director of Digisight Corporation, an early stage venture financed ophthalmic digital health company and Lagunita Biosciences LLC, an early stage biotechnology and medical investment company.